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Viva Las Vegas Golden Knights

The Vegas Golden Knights had the most successful inaugural season in NHL history. They made the playoffs as one of the top seeds in the Stanley Cup Playoffs—no other team has ever accomplished this task. Unfortunately, something about them still seems a little bit off. What is it? Is it the players or the way they play? No, that has shown to be false. Is it the coach? No, Gerard Gallant has done a fabulous job. So… what is it exactly? Oh, that’s right! It is their enchanting team name, nonsensical mascot, excessive theatrics, and “Woooo!” Girl fans.

Golden Knights Name

Knights personnel,

Can you tell me who took the liberty of picking out the name and mascot of your new hockey team—Golden Knights and Chance the Gila Monster? Yeah, you heard me right—Chance the Gila Monster. I guess I can understand the team name as a play on words, but even that is a stretch.

Gambling > Money > Gold > Golden

Lights > Night > Night Life > Knights

If the name is not a play on words, then please explain yourself, because I would love to hear your reasoning. Think of all the fun puns you could do: “Knight Life,” “Knighty Knight”, or “Knight Lights Control the City.” You could do some cool things with the name knight and somehow associate it with Vegas, but we have yet to see any of that.

Chance the Gila Monster

Now that we have established how your name makes no sense, we can move on to your mascot. A knight, right? WRONG. Your mascot is a lizard? What?? I can understand a dragon, because every stereotypical cartoon movie shows a knight slaying the dragon to get to the princess. (In this scenario, the princess is a silver cup named Lord Stanley.) However, I have never once seen knights fighting against or working alongside lizards except in Mulan. Oh wait, even that was a dragon! Dammit!

The creative team did get one thing right—naming the poisonous lizard Chance! Now I bet you see the association there.

Or it was:

“I wonder how well the team will do this season.”

“Meh, let’s leave it up to Chance.”

Las Vegas Theatrics

Tolerating the name and mascot are easy. One thing that is slightly more difficult is the excessive theatrics that T-Mobile Arena produces throughout the game. Apparently, the Vegas Golden Knights are completely focused on fighting off bad guys. The pre-game introduction portrays the other 30 NHL teams as bandits dressed in black outfits. These bandits have the goal of controlling the Vegas territory for which the Knight must defend.

The attacking team tries to remove this sword but is too weak. The Knights now portray King Arthur as they shove the bandit out of the way, majestically remove Excalibur from the stone, and forcefully thrust the blade into the air. In addition to having the cheesiest introduction ever, I have never experienced a more polarized “we are the good guys, they are the bad guys” hockey game before in my life.

Like any other sporting event, short videos get played throughout game breaks (intermissions, penalties, TV timeouts, etc.). During this time, the Vegas Golden Knights took the opportunity to superimpose their logo over existing videos to show how they could defeat the bad guys. The scene where Obi-Wan Kenobi slices Darth Maul in half was actually used during the game, looking just like the image below. It seemed like a silly and cheap gimmick for such a rich, popular, and vibrant city.

Epidemy of “Woooo!” Girl

Finally, most of the fans act like the party girls who get so drunk that the only noise out of their mouth is “Wooo!” We all know these girls. They represent the Las Vegas Golden Knights’ fans to a T. No joke. The fans legitimately “Wooo!” about every two minutes. But no, not all at once, individual people yell out “Wooo!” as a call, and the others respond. This strange communication technique continues even after the game. Up and down The Strip, you will continue hearing “Wooo!” throughout the night and into the morning.

Then, a funny thing happened at the end of the game. Let it be known that I went to a game routing for the opposite team— Colorado Avalanche at the Vegas Golden Knights. I knew what I was getting myself into. As I was exiting the arena, a “Wooo!” guy decided to yell at me saying “Yeah, go back to the cold!” Uh. okay…?

First, I do not live in Colorado but good try. I actually live in Utah where, granted, it gets cold too (but that can be our little secret).

Second, is “Go back to the cold!” really the harshest insult you can think to say? Colorado must be pretty cool for that to be the case. After all, it has legalized marijuana, school districts offer four-day school weeks, and it has shown to be one of the healthiest states— along with Utah. Seems nice to me.

And third, you live in Nevada. Need I say more? At least my state has a little bit of character. Your state, on the other hand, has dirt and casinos. My team may have lost 4-1, but you, sir, have lost 3-0.

Good night, Golden Knights.

Every person wants to rant to someone, so why not rant to everyone instead? Check out all the latest rants by returning to “Rantler – Home.”